Glasshouse (36 page)

“Praise the designers!”
echoes the congregation.

“Dear congregants, let us remember that true meaning and happiness in life can be found through complying with the great design! A round peg in a round hole!”

“A round peg in a round hole!”
rolls the response.

“Let us also give thanks for the happiness that has come to Mrs. Reeve Brown, who is now most certainly a round peg in a round hole, and for the solace and comfort that members of our congregation's away team have brought to Mrs. Cassandra Green, now recovering in hospital! Happiness, comfort, and solace!”

“Happiness, comfort, and solace!”

I shake my head, happy but confused. I can't figure it out, why is Fiore holding me of all people up as an example to the rest of the congregation? I glance round and see Jen, a couple of aisles away, staring snake eyes at me.

“It is our duty to care for our neighbors, to help them conform to the ways of our society, to join with them in their joy and their sorrow, their acceptance and their forgiveness. If your neighbors need you, go unto them and give them the benefit of your generosity. We are all neighbors, and those of us who are not in need this week may be among
the neediest next week. Guide and care for them, and chide them when it is appropriate . . .”

I begin to zone out. Fiore's voice is hypnotic, his tone rising and falling in a measured cadence. It's warm and stuffy in Church with the doors shut, and it seems Fiore isn't going to divert from his sermon to condemn a sinner this week. For which I should be grateful—Fiore could have decided to wreck my score for what I did last week. Despite the warmth, I find myself shivering. He's shown more forbearance than I expected. Should I follow his example, and instead of telling him about Janis, try to set her straight myself?

“. . . For remember, you are your brother's keepers, and by the behavior of your brethren shall you be judged. Voyage without end, amen!”

“Voyage without end!”
echoes the chorus.
“Amen!”

We stand, and there's another sing-along, clap-along number—this time in a language I don't understand, about marching and freedom and bread according to the psalm book—and then the priest and his attendants leave the front, and the service is over.

I'm a bit disappointed, but also relieved as we file out of the Church into the bright daylight, where a buffet is waiting for us. Sam is even quieter than usual, but right now I don't care. I snag a glass of wine and a plate with a wheatmeal and fungus confection on it and wander over to the vicinity of our cohort.

“Decided to settle down, have we?” asks a voice at my left shoulder. I manage to suppress a frown of distaste. It's Jen, of course.

“I care for my neighbors,” I say, squeezing every gram of sincerity I can muster into it; then I make myself smile at her.

She beams back at me, of course. “Me too!” She trills, then glances round. “I'm glad Fiore was merciful today, though. I gather some of us might have been in for a rough ride!”

Sly little bitch.
“I've no idea what you're talking about,” I begin, but it's impossible to go on because the Church bells have begun to ring. Normally they clang in a vague semblance of rhythm, but now they're jarring and clattering as if something's caught up among them. People are turning and looking up at the tower. “That's odd.”

“Yes, it is.” Jen sniffs dismissively and begins to turn toward a nearby knot of males.

“I haven't finished with you.”

“In your dreams, darling.” A broad grin, and she slips away.

Irritated, I look up at the tower. The door below it is ajar.
Odd
, I think. It's not strictly my business, but what if something's come loose? I ought to get help. I deposit my glass and plate with a passing waitron and walk toward the door, taking care to stay off the grass in my high heels.

The clashing and clattering of disturbed bells is getting louder, and there's something dark on the front step, under the door. As I make my way to it I look down and an unpleasantly familiar stink infiltrates my nostrils, bringing tears to my eyes. I turn round, and yell, “Over here! Help!” Then I push the door open.

The bell tower is a tall space illuminated by small windows just below the base of the spire. The daylight spilling down from them casts long shadows across the beams and the bells that dangle from them, jostling and clashing above the whitewashed floor, staining the spreading pool of dark liquid. Spreading black, the gray of shadows, and a pale pendulum swinging across the floor. It takes a second for my eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness, and another second before I understand what they're showing me.

Mick, of all people, is the one playing the endless atonal carillon that summoned me. It is immediately obvious that his mastery of music is involuntary. He hangs from a bell-rope by the ankles, his head tracing an endless pendulous circuit across the floor in twin tracks of blood. Someone has taped his arms to his body, gagged him, and rammed hypodermic needles into each ear. The cannulae drip steadily, emptying what's left of his blood supply from his purple and congested head. Loops and whorls and spirals of blood have trickled in a delicate filigree, but some unevenness in the ground leads the runnels to flow toward a pool on the inside of the door.

I'm simultaneously appalled, dumbstruck with admiration for the artistic technique on display, terrified that whoever did it might still be lurking at the scene, and utterly nauseated at my satisfaction at Mick's
end. So I do the only sensible and socially expedient thing I can think of, and scream my lungs out.

The first fellow to arrive on the scene—a couple of seconds after I get started—isn't much use: He takes one look at the impromptu chandelier, then doubles over and adds his lunch to the puddle. But the second on the scene turns out to be Martin, one of the volunteer gravediggers. “Reeve? Are you all right?”

I nod and manage to take a sobbing breath. I feel unstable, and my vision is watery. “Look.” I point. “Better get the . . . the . . . Fiore. He'll know what to do.”

“I'll call the police.” Martin walks around the pool of blood and vomit carefully and picks up the telephone handset that's fastened to the wall by the vestry entrance. “Hello? Operator?” He jiggles the switch on top of the handset. “That's odd.”

My brain is slowly beginning to work again. “What's odd?”

“The telephone. It's not making any noise. It doesn't work.”

I snuffle, wipe my nose on the sleeve of my jacket, and stare at him. “That's very odd.”
Yes
, a quiet corner of my mind reminds me,
that's odd, and not in a good way
. “Let's go outside.”

Andrew—the guy who's throwing up—has just about finished, and is down to making choking, sobbing noises. Martin pulls him up by one arm, and we walk outside together. There's a growing crowd on the porch, curious to know what's going on. “Someone call the police,” Martin shouts. “Get the Reverend if you can find him!” People are pushing past him to look inside the doorway, yelling in disbelief and coming back out again.

Somebody is sending us, the congregation, a message, aren't they?
I stumble but make it down onto the grass. Sam's there, looking concerned. “You were with me during the service,” I hiss. “You were next to me the whole time. You know where I was.”

“Yes?” He looks puzzled. So do I.
I'm not sure why I'm doing this, but
 . . .

“I spoke to Jen briefly, then heard the bells and went to see. Then I screamed. I was only inside for a second on my own. Wasn't I?”

Sam gets it: His shoulders tense suddenly. “How bad is it?”

“Mick.” I gasp quietly, then run out of words. I can't continue just now because I had to look; I saw how his killer fastened him to the bell-rope by his ankles, cutting him and running the thick rope through the meaty gap between the bone and the thick tendon. I'm half-afraid that when they cut him down, they'll discover he was raped first, while paralyzed, before his killer strung him up to drain like a slab of flesh. A moment later I'm leaning on Sam's shoulder, sobbing. He doesn't pull away, but holds me in silence while all around us the crowd throbs and chatters. I've seen many horrible things in my life, but there was a judicial deliberation implicit in what was done to Mick—a hideous moral statement, blindly confident in its own righteousness. I know exactly who did it, even though I spent the entire service next to Sam; because for hours on end I lay awake and fantasized about doing that to Mick, the night we took Cass away.

“WELL
, Mrs. Brown, how fascinating to see you here! Always in the thick of things, I see.”

His Excellency smiles like a skeleton, jaw agape at some private joke. Sam shuffles next to me but holds his peace. You do not talk back to the Bishop, especially when it's clear that his humor is a mercurial thing, a butterfly floating above a blast furnace of rage at the intrusion that has spoiled his Sunday.

Fiore clears his throat. “She is not a suspect,” he says stiffly.

“What?” Yourdon's head whips round like a snake's. The police zombies around us tense as if nervous, hands going to the batons at their belts.

It's been half an hour since I opened the door, and the cops have surrounded the churchyard. They're not letting people go until Yourdon says so. He's clearly in a foul mood. Cold-blooded murder isn't something our community has had to deal with so far, and if we're to stay in the spirit of the experiment, we must remember that to the ancients it was as grievous a crime as identity theft or relational corruption. It's at this point that the deficiencies of our little parish become apparent. We
have no real chief of police, no trained investigators. And so the Bishop is forced to tend his flock in person.

“I saw her arrive with her husband, she was present throughout the service, and numerous witnesses saw her approach the door and go inside, then heard her scream. She was alone inside for all of ten seconds, and if you think she could have committed the offense in that space of time . . .”

“I'll ask for you to second-guess me when I can't be bothered to make up my own mind.” Yourdon's cheek twitches, then he switches his attention to Martin so abruptly I feel my knees weaken. An invisible pressure has come off my skull. “You. What did you see?”

Martin clears his throat, and is stuttering into an account of finding me screaming before a corpse when a cop walks up to Fiore for a brief, mumbled conversation.

Yourdon glares at his subordinate. “Will you stop that?”

Fiore shuffles. “I have new information, Your Excellency.”

“Yes? Well, out with it! I haven't got all day.”

Fiore—the bumptious, supercilious buffoon of a priest who likes nothing more than to lord it over his congregation—wilts like a punctured aerostat. “A preliminary forensic examination appears to have revealed DNA traces left by the killer.”

Yourdon snorts. “Why did we wait to commission a squad of detectives? Come on, don't waste my time.”

Fiore takes a sheet of paper from the cop. “PCR amplification in accordance with—no, skip that—determines that the fingerprint on file is congruent with, uh, myself. And nobody else in YFH-Polity.”

Yourdon looks furious. “Are you telling me that you strung him up to bleed out?”

To his credit, Fiore holds his ground. “No, Your Excellency, I'm telling you that the murderer is playing with us.”

I lean against Sam, feeling nauseous.
But that was my fantasy, wasn't it? About how to deal with Mick. And I never told anyone about it. Which means, I must be the killer! Except I didn't do it. What's going on?

“That's it.” Yourdon claps his hands together. “Action this day—you, Reverend Fiore, will coordinate with Dr. Hanta to select, train, and augment a chief police constable. Who in turn will be empowered and authorized to induct four citizens into the police force at the rank of sergeant. You will also discuss with me at a later date the selection of a judge, procedures for arraigning criminals before a jury, and the appointment of an executioner.” He glares at the priest. “Then you will, I trust, return your chapel to the pristine condition it was in before I entrusted it to you—and see to the pastoral care of your flock, many of whom are in dire need of direction!”

The Bishop turns on his heel and sweeps back toward his long black limousine, trailed by a trio of police zombies bearing primitive but effective automatic weapons. I sag against Sam's arm, but he keeps me upright. Fiore waits until the Bishop slams his door shut, then takes a deep breath and shakes his head lugubriously. “No good will come of this,” he grumbles in our direction—us, the proximate witnesses, and the zombies who discreetly hem us in. “Police: dismissed. Citizens, you should attend to the state of your consciences. At least one of you knows exactly what happened here today, before the service, and staying silent will not be to your benefit.”

The police zombies begin to disperse, followed by a gaggle of curious parishioners. I approach Fiore cautiously. I'm very disturbed, and I'm not sure this is the right time, but . . .